Stan Nelson column

Saturday

Dec 29, 2007 at 12:01 AM

Germans, Scientologists face uptight impasse

In the end, the government of Germany is unlikely to give Scientology the bum's rush it so dearly wishes to.

For years Berlin has kept close watch on the country's small knots of the devotees of L. Ron Hubbard, the science-fiction writer who claimed his insights into human behavior could be instituted in a system that would cleanse those who submit to it, and thereby prepare a new sort of people who, in turn, could or would populate an ideal society.

Here is how the Scientology Web site characterizes its movement's ultimate goal: "A civilization without insanity, without criminals, and without war, where the able can prosper, and honest beings can have rights, and where man is free to rise to greater heights, are the aims of Scientology." Grammar doesn't seem important (the phrase should be "is the aim") - a minor shame for a movement founded by a writer - but the point is clear enough: better people and societies through better minds.

The history of the movement, reportedly begun in 1953 by Hubbard and his wife, Mary Sue, appears to have suffered as many bumps as other religious organizations, churches or otherwise.

Its difficulties with proselytization in other countries appear to fit the character of obstacles faced by some evangelical Christian outreach missions. It is banned in parts of Australia, and has suffered a rather uncomfortable relationship with the British government. Russia, despite an adverse ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, refuses its registration as a religious community.

Criticisms of Scientology's ideology and practice, sometimes delivered by agencies of foreign governments, are given in terms similar to some heard against Christianity - threats to social order and the like. The Scientologists often respond in defense of religious freedom.

But in Germany, history provides a unique background. As a result, a report to the government by the Ministry of the Interior makes a case not only for refusal to recognize Scientology as a religion, but for its close monitoring.

The report, released in 2005, states, "there is substantial evidence that the Scientology Organisation (SO) is involved in activities directed against the free democratic order."

That is rather harsh language against the belief preferred by celebrities like actors Tom Cruise and John Travolta. But, just like the photos that developed on blank paper in the darkrooms of days past, the picture begins to emerge from the report. The Scientologists make the Germans nervous, because what they claim to find in the organization resonates spookily with the tones of their disastrous history.

When German officials discover among Hubbard's writings sentences like, "Freedom is for honest people . . . There is personal freedom only for those who have the ability to be free," they are likely to hear the chilling echoes of the same fascist pronouncements that led to so much trouble more than six decades ago.

And when Scientology course materials the Germans say were discovered in Denmark include such phrases as, "We see no critic of Scientology who does not have a criminal background. . . . Those who oppose us have crimes to conceal," the alarm bells are sure to clamor in Berlin.

Such material might be taken out of context and the German government's conclusions may not be fair, but its reflex toward suspicion is understandable. Sixty-two years after the end of its swirling national disaster of war and genocide, the mere hint of anti-Semitism, for example, is enough to end political careers.

In short, Germany is hypersensitive, and has come by that condition rather honestly.

In every case where a religious order finds itself under such cultural pressure, the burden falls upon its followers. Paul the Apostle understood this while he sought to spread his controversial and countercultural faith through the diverse states of the Roman Empire, and communicated to other Christians the value of sensitivity to surrounding cultures.

"(U)nto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; (t)o them that are without law, as without law. . . ” Among Greeks and Romans, Paul used that sensitivity to attain the common ground that would serve as the basis for the conversion of souls.

He didn't take the Romans to court, as Scientiologists have done with the German government; they took him. He called no one a criminal; his heart yearned for them, as little regard as they demonstrated for him. He stands even today as the model of the missionary, even under the worst circumstances.

The Germans cannot be a sked to forget their past. The Scientologists, if their cause at all comprehends the defense of religious freedom, perhaps should consider Paul's example more deeply.

Stan Nelson is news editor at The Pueblo Chieftain. He may be reached by e-mail at snelson@chieftain.com .

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